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Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor $29

Neat toy. I got mine on ebay.Probably similar price. You run around the house suprising yourself what things cost to run the first 2 weeks then you forget about it. I need to go check all my new junk for wattage use.
 
i just got one a month ago.. found that it costs 70W just to have the monitor on and 4W to have it in sleep..

oh and 3 cents to cook a burger on the george forman 🙂
 
Originally posted by: dr_wily
i just got one a month ago.. found that it costs 70W just to have the monitor on and 4W to have it in sleep..

oh and 3 cents to cook a burger on the george forman 🙂
Click to expand...

LCD monitor?
 
it can be a useful tool because it'svery portable. If you ahve a ups with serial or USB output it probably can at least at one moment tell you how much juice anything is using by computing load percentage... if you need to calibrate check out a lamp or a LED light.
 
i got one! its great, i use it to calculate the total amount of eletricity that i use and also to make sure i dont end up tripping a circuit
 
Don't take this wrong, but $30 for this product isn't really a deal at all...they have been selling at this price for at least a year now...when it's under $20 give me a call.
 
Originally posted by: Oakii
How does it save power?
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It helps to show you why your electric bills might be higher than neccessary. If you are the kind who leaves your stuff running all the time (TV, computer, lamps) it could give you a real world measure of what that appliance actually translates into real dollars, instead of just an abstract number on your electric bill. Might give you an incentive to remember to turn off the TV or lamp when you leave the room!

Good review here, http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/kill_a_watt_electric_usage_monitor_review
 
Originally posted by: Oakii
How does it save power?
Click to expand...

More of a tool to see how much electric is being burned. Computer freaks can turn around and try to optimize their power consumption isn't of just sitting around seeing how fast their system is.
 
Originally posted by: Rommels
Don't take this wrong, but $30 for this product isn't really a deal at all...they have been selling at this price for at least a year now...when it's under $20 give me a call.
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And your phone number would be ... 🙂
 
figure of speech, but seriously its a fast seller when in stock, but around $20 is a much more common price to pay.

You plug it into the wall, and plug the device you want to measure the power consumption of into it, then just read the meter with a few options.

There is a similar sized box called a Watt wizard (something like that) and that can save you money if you have an old refridgerator without power factor correction, or any similar motor idling power user.
 
Originally posted by: Oakii
How does it save power?
Click to expand...

It shows where you are wasting power. I had a 5yr old Onkyo receiver that drew 70 watts when it was just turned on. not evey playing anything. I used to just leave it on all the time, now I turn it off. The meter shows what is actually being drawn.

My computer which is on all the time had an Antec 400W PSU, I switched to a Seasonic S12 and am saving 50 watts.

Many not sound like much, but over a 24 hr period it adds up to power and heat savings, why pay for something you do not have to
 
According to my calculations, with a kWh costing 9.879 cents in my area, you are saving about 46 cents a month. Let's say you bought that PSU from newegg and you got the 380w model. That would mean that it will pay itself off in only 15.6 years! 🙂

Unless you went with the 430w model, it'll take about 19.2 years. Let's hope they last long enough to make the investment pay off. 😉
 
Originally posted by: homestarmy
According to my calculations, with a kWh costing 9.879 cents in my area, you are saving about 46 cents a month. Let's say you bought that PSU from newegg and you got the 380w model. That would mean that it will pay itself off in only 15.6 years! 🙂

Unless you went with the 430w model, it'll take about 19.2 years. Let's hope they last long enough to make the investment pay off. 😉
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I believe you slipped up. So for arithmetic fans here's my take:

Lets figure something simple first, then adjust in proportion.

30 days times 24 hours gives 720 hours in a month (in case something is on 24/7)

100 watts, as for a 100 watt light, gives
720 times 100 = 72000 watt hours or 72 killowatt hours

10 cents a killowatt hour gives $7.20

That gives you somethng to base the rest on.

If you only use 50 watts, that's multiplying by .5 for
.5 x $7.20 = $3.60.
And that's roughly what you save a month for something that saves 50 watts and is on 24/7. If its on 8 hours a day, it's $1.20.

9.879 instead of 10 cents gives
.9879 x $3.60 = $3.56

You can check my arithmetic.

IAC, something that is on a large part of a day, and saves 50 watts can be worth on the order of 12 X $3.60 = $43.20 in savings a year. It is probably more than you imagine, but the key is how much time per day it is on. If it is on only 8 hours, or 1/3 of the day, you are down to $14.40 a year.

A power supply rated at 500 W does not use 500 W, it outputs at most 500 watts. Since an 80% efficient PS is pretty efficient, it would use 500/.80 = 625 watts at max output. But a realistic power use for heavy duty gaming system is probably under 200 W averaged, and the PS would draw less also. (Big PSs are used, I gather, on the theory that they handle peaks better.) But then power supplies used at a fraction of their output don't approach their rated efficiency either. But then PS specs are usually a total load of BS anyway. Without measuring, you have no idea what you are using.

 
I think Seasonic makes a similar device called the Power Angel.

Depending on what part of the country you live in, your cost for letting things run when not using them has a hidden aspect. That is, you'll pay extra for air conditioning (conversely perhaps less in Winter for heating). I used to live in the Colorado desert (SW CA) and when I would have LAN parties the air conditioning wouldn't even be able to keep up at full blast. I'd have to chill the whole house down considerably before people show up and then use fans (had a high powered industrial fan with over 2' diameter) to try cycling the air. Currently I have a "computer room" and with three computers running, plus a laser printer idling and two UPS batteries, plus a stereo receiver, just walking into the room from the hallway you can feel a difference. Come summer I'll probably be leaving the laser printer off, and perhaps using RMClock to lower clock speeds on the systems.
 
I had had one for a long time. The only thing I do not like about it is the shap. The thing is huge and try to affix it to a power bar and it covers 6 slots.
 
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